Friday, May 15, 2009

More on Louisville

The last time I showed work in Louisville was May of 1976, a student work show at the Louisville Public Library (if my memory serves me correctly), I had the distinction of having one of my entries removed due to obscenity. You be the judge but I'm guessing someone saw something homoerotic in the image.Here's the story behind the picture. My friend Bobby Adams and I were interested in making deliberately provocative, dada'esque images often using each other as models. We were on the roof of the Center for Photographic Studies on W. Main St in downtown Louisville. I had just shot Bobby, with his camera, nude and standing on his hands with the cityscape of Louisville behind him. As he pulled on his jeans he remarked, "damn, look at the black stuff all over my hands" and I took a couple frames with my own camera.The exaggerated grain in the image was from deliberate reticulation of the negatives during processing, a technique I used quite a bit during that period, and one which I now look back on and mostly groan. First year photo student stuff.Anyway, it was kind of cool having my print banished. At least I got a reaction.